Save the puppies!

More than 250,000 animals are euthanized each year in North Carolina. With overpopulated shelters, there is often times no room or adequate resources to care for them. Many factors contribute to this tragedy, but one outweighs them all: Get your pet spayed or neutered.

Dogs are often called man’s best friend, but more than 1,000 helpless canines suffered the death sentence in Lenoir County last year because there was simply no other choice for the unwanted animals.

In North Carolina, the uncontrolled breeding of animals, primarily due to the lack of spaying and neutering, leaves many cats and dogs without a home. Some eventually have to be destroyed by euthanasia methods — from lethal injection to the gas chamber, which 10 counties in the state continue to use.

In Lenoir County — which uses injection to put down animals — more than half of at least 3,300 animals picked up and turned over to the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter are euthanized, according to Joey Huff, health director of the Lenoir County Health Department.

“People that own dogs and cats need to be responsible pet owners,” he said. “The most important thing that you can do as a pet owner is to have your dog or cat spayed or neutered. That’s the biggest problem we have in our county.”

The state’s Protection of Animals statute recognizes the unrestrained population of dogs and cats leads to unwanted animals that become nuisances and health hazards. Therefore, North Carolina provides funding for spay and neuter programs, including reduced costs of the practice and education on the benefits.

“People who have dogs and cats let them roam, let them run around (when) they’re not fixed and they propagate,” Huff said. “So we have a lot of stray, unwanted, unclaimed dogs and cats.”

The health department provides animal control officers for city and county complaints, and it enforces an animal control ordinance. When someone calls in for an animal complaint, usually strays, a switchboard operator logs it into a system to be accessed by an ACO. In some cases, the person calling will be provided a cell phone number to one of the officers.

The county is overpopulated with unwanted animals as more than 2,250 animal complaint calls were tallied last year, including 118 animal bite complaints. The 2012 year wound up costing taxpayers $30,000 to euthanize 1,806 animals.

“Funding is always an issue,” Huff said, noting limited resources.

On the upside, 1,355 animals were saved last year, according to the county’s SPCA report.

The shelter strongly advocates spaying and neutering pets as many of their animals last year were comprised of unwanted litters; it also provides a $25 voucher acceptable at any Lenoir County veterinarian.

“This week, we had so many litters come in with the mom, the owners turn them over and say, ‘I can’t do it anymore,’ ” said SPCA assistant manager Steve Koonce. “Absolutely always spay/neuter. It’s to prevent the population from exploding more and more and more.”

On March 7, the Wake County SPCA loaded animals in a rescue van due to a shortage of space in Lenoir County. There aren’t as many stray animals in Raleigh, so those shelters sometimes have more room. Each Saturday, the local SPCA volunteers also transport animals to Richmond, Va., hoping to heighten their chances for adoption.

Page 2 of 4 - Last year, nearly 700 dogs and 150 cats were rescued through this initiative.

The state law requires shelters to keep animals for 72 hours before they decide to send them to be euthanized.

“If we have room for them, we want to keep them as long as we possibly can,” Koonce said. “That’s why it’s very important that people come in to adopt.”

The pet adoption process takes up to 24 hours to check veterinarian history and calling landlords if the person is renting. Otherwise, the shelter staff gauges a general impression about how the prospective pet owner will treat the animal.

“I really try to talk to people,” Koonce said. “I do a little detective work in my mind based on their personalities and how they interact with the animals.”

While the shelter pushes to keep animals until they can be adopted, it clears animals for euthanasia at least twice a week — based on how many are coming in, its personality and how adoptable it is. Last week, about 80 animals were submitted to the shelter. SPCA houses nearly 200 cats and dogs on any given week.

“(A) little Maltesejust came in,” said Kris Petrusch, local SPCA rescue coordinator. “If it had an ID tag on it, I’d be calling the owner right now.”

She said identifying pets and spaying and neutering are solutions to keeping animals out of shelters.

A Raleigh photography professor at Meredith College had a similar standpoint and used a photo project to raise awareness about what happens to animals who don’t find homes.

“Discarded Property”

In 2009, Mary Shannon Johnstone completed “Breeding Ignorance,” a series of photos exposing conditions in animal shelters. Her work included the “Discarded Property” album of grueling pictures of animal shelter euthanasia — from a black trash bag full of dead kittens to a frightened dog headed to be put down.

“Obviously I think it’s really sad and I think it’s terrible, but it’s something that we have to do,” Johnstone told The Free Press. “It’d be inhumane to keep the animals alive without being able to give them attention or love that they need. My stance is that we should be spaying and neutering our animals to sustainable numbers.”

The text of her project highlighted more than 250,000 animals are euthanized each year in North Carolina.

Johnstone volunteers at an animal shelter in Wake County twice a week and noticed the high volume of them coming in.

“I started thinking of what happens when we don’t spay and neuter,” said Johnstone, who has six adopted pets of her own. “We should visualize what happens. Maybe if we could see what’s going on, we wouldn’t be so negligent about spaying and neutering.”

Page 3 of 4 - She conducted the photography at a different shelter than the one where she volunteers and the lead veterinarian told her if she needed to cry, she had to step outside to maintain professionalism inside of the shelter.

“She said, ‘What you’re going to do is feel really bad and you’re going to go home and you’re going to love the animals that you have. That’s what I do and that’s what we all do that work here,’ ” Johnstone said. “I admire them deeply. They’re basically doing our dirty work for us when we’re careless with letting our dogs (and) cats procreate.”

She said there are boxes of litters dropped of everyday.

“I think (euthanasia) is necessary until we come up with a more sustainable solution,” Johnston said. “My hope is that we do come up (with it). My hope is that these pictures will make people mad and … get on lawmakers and advocate for spay neuter laws.”

Her photos can be viewed at shannonjohnston.com with captions, including one from an anonymous veterinarian under a picture of a dog being injected: “The tragedy is not the fact we euthanize cats and dogs. The tragedy is that we HAVE to euthanize them. There is no alternative.”

The heroes

Elizabeth Flick of Kinston recently visited the county’s SPCA looking to adopt a dog to add to a cat she adopted from the shelter three years ago.

“She was the only black cat that they had and was pretty much a young adult, so I took her in,” she said. “I think I need another companion — that extra love I guess.”

Flick chose to adopt because she felt buying from a breeder was “nonsense.”

“A dog is a dog,” she said. “Why pay extra money to score a full-bred dog when you can have a dog that loves you just as much as any other dog.”

She played around with a few animals of all ages and sizes at SPCA, hoping to find a match.

With some dogs and cats having behavioral issues from being abandoned, it’s important to socialize them before they can be adopted.

“The thing that sells them to people who are looking to adopt a friend is friendliness,” said Molly Stone, Wake County’s SPCA behavioral specialist, who helped a team transport Lenoir County animals to Raleigh. “You want to make sure they feel comfortable. One of the best ways to do that is to just be nice to them all the time so they know people are trustworthy.”

As she played with a litter of puppies in a large cage to be transported, she added it takes patience because you never know an animal’s experience with people. Her job, which she said she’s lucky to have, is to help the animals get adopted.

Page 4 of 4 - If someone cannot adopt an animal, they can still make donations or volunteer at the shelter. No more than 10 help at the local SPCA, some having full-time jobs. Each staff member is a pet owner and fosters a dog or cat in their own home.

“I’ve seen them stay late to get work done,” Steve Koonce said. “They’re so committed and dedicated. We don’t do it for the money, we do it for the animals.”